The world’s migrating monarch butterfly population has bounced back slightly from its record low last year, but the new numbers are still the second smallest on record. According to WWF-Mexico and the Mexican government, butterflies covered 2.79 acres (1.13 hectares) in nine colonies this year in the Mexican forests where the insects overwinter. This is a 69 percent increase from last year’s nadir of just 1.65 acres (0.67 hectares), however, the new numbers remain hugely concerning.

“The population increase is welcome news, but the monarch must reach a much larger population size to be able to bounce back from ups and downs,” said researcher Tierra Curry with the Center for Biological Diversity, adding that “this much-loved butterfly still needs Endangered Species Act protection to ensure that it’s around for future generations.”

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it would consider adding the vanishing insect under the country’s Endangered Species Act. Currently, the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is not at risk of extinction, but its migration is. Monarch butterflies in the Eastern U.S. are famous for their epic migration spanning some 1,900 to 4,500 kilometers (1,200 to 2,800 miles) from Canada to the mountains of central Mexico every year. Each migration takes several monarch generations to complete, often three to four.

In the 1990s—when scientists first started counting the area filled by migrating monarch butterflies in Mexico—the overwintering habitat never dipped below 13 acres (five hectares). The largest population covered 44.95 acres (18.19 hectares) in 1993. But the trend over the last decade has been one of extensive decline, with various rises and falls.

A decade ago, conservationists were largely concerned with deforestation and illegal logging in Mexico’s overwintering forests. However, due to work by indigenous groups, locals, and the Mexican government that threat has been largely neutralized, at least for the time being. Today the biggest threat is the loss of food and habitat across the U.S. and Canada due to herbicides and increasingly intensified agriculture.

According to WWF, herbicide use in the U.S. for soy and corn killed off 58 percent of the country’s milkweed from 1999 to 2010, resulting in a monarch decline of 81 percent. The development of genetically modified crops has exacerbated the situation as these crops are resistant to the popular herbicide, Roundup. However, Roundup and other herbicides containing glyphosate decimate milkweed populations. Monarch butterfly caterpillars feed solely on milkweed, meaning the species requires a road of milkweed from Canada through Eastern and Central U.S. down to Mexico in order to survive. But agriculture policy in the last couple decades, especially in the U.S., has resulted in a massively fragmented milkweed route.

“The 2.79 acres occupied by monarchs this winter should serve as additional motivation for the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States to translate the commitment they made in Mexico in February 2014, to concrete and immediate actions,” said Omar Vidal, Director General of WWF-Mexico. “It is crucial that we restore and protect the habitat of this iconic species in all three countries, but above all that we limit the use of herbicide and land conversion in the United States and maintain efforts to avoid deforestation in Mexico.”

Conservationists say that planting milkweed in gardens may benefit the monarch, however gardeners must plant the right variety of milkweed and make sure the milkweed hasn’t been coated with a popular insecticide in the neonicotinoid family. Research has shown that neonicotinoids may harm pollinators, such as bees and butterflies.

Monarch butterflies aren’t the only pollinators in trouble, many of the world’s pollinators have undergone drastic declines in recent decades. Experts point to possible impacts such as pesticides, habitat loss, and disease.

No one has completed a survey to arrive at a population number for the birds in Montana, according to Steve Huffman, executive director of Montana Audubon. “If you polled a bunch of owl experts, though, you’d probably find the range of the species is declining and Montana is no exception to that,” he said.

In Canada the bird is listed as an endangered species because of “habitat loss and fragmentation, road kills, pesticides, food shortage, fewer burrow providers and mortality on migration and wintering areas,” according to Parks Canada.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks lists the bird as “potentially at risk because of limited and/or declining numbers, range and/or habitat, even though it may be abundant in some areas.” The Forest Service and BLM consider the owl a sensitive species.

With its burrowing owl migration study, Johnson said GLOW is hoping to keep the birds off the endangered species list in the United States by developing conservation strategies.

Unique bird

Burrowing owls date back in the fossil record millions of years, Johnson said. They may be one of the very few birds to nest underground, an adaptation to their prairie home where few trees exist.

Instead, the birds use abandoned badger, swift fox and prairie dog dens to nest in, often as far as 10 feet underground to escape the reach of predators like coyotes.

The owls are small, averaging about 9.5 inches long with 21-inch wingspans and tipping the scales at only 5 ounces. In addition to bugs, the owls will eat small mammals like mice and voles, birds, reptiles and snakes.

Most of the owls live about five to six years. The females migrate south around October to stay healthy for the spring breeding season when they return north. The exception is California’s burrowing owls, which reside there year-round.

“One of the things I’ve learned is how incredibly tough these birds are,” Johnson said.

When initially fitted with transmitters, the antenna was made of 70-pound test fishing line. The birds chewed through that, so Teflon tubing was substituted for the line. The satellite transmitters are expensive, costing $3,500 apiece, but they provide a clearer picture of the birds’ migration.

Every 48 hours the solar-charged devices turn on for 10 hours and send a signal every minute before going silent for another 48 hours. From these transmissions, Johnson has learned that the birds travel about 100 to 200 miles in a night, averaging 30 mph.

“When they migrate it seems to be pretty darn direct,” he said. “They don’t waste time.”

CMR biologist Randy Matchett watched the migration data pop up on his computer screen, impressing him with the birds’ speed and ability to fly high. Although the transmitters don’t contain an altimeter, it was evident by their route that the owls were flying over 10,000-foot peaks, he said.

“Everyone knows birds migrate long distances, but it is kind of neat to watch it alive in real time,” Matchett said.

Johnson said one of the surprises GLOW discovered when tagging some burrowing owls in Oregon was that a male flew north, rather than south, for the winter.

“The male’s goal was to go someplace to tough it out and get the best burrow” for the following spring’s mating season, Johnson said. “As the males get older, they get tougher.”

Newer gear

The satellite transmitters are a big step up from the old technology. As far back as 1912, ornithologists captured and placed numbered bands on birds to try to track them. Trouble is, the bands could only be recovered if the bird was recaptured or found dead, and they were no help in identifying migration routes.

Bands were more recently replaced by tiny light-sensitive monitors that could track the duration of sunlight hitting them, giving researchers an indication of where the birds had gone based on the length of days at different latitudes. The transmitters are relatively inexpensive — about $200 — compared to satellite trackers, but again they gave only a vague indication of migration routes and the birds had to be recaptured to recover the data.

The more expensive satellite transmitters – which weigh in at 6 grams compared to 3.2 grams for the ambient light geolocators – track the birds’ location within 150 meters, the battery’s voltage and the temperature. The units also have small solar cells to recharge the battery.

“It’s amazing it works at all, actually,” Johnson said.

Southbound

The Montana owls migrated south by traveling east of the Rocky Mountains to north of Mexico City. One has settled northeast of Guadalajara and the other is in the state of Durango. The third Montana owl was found dead before it left, possibly dinner for a predator.

Off the 22 GLOW-tagged owls that started their migration in October, 17 are now in Mexico. By March or April, the urge to fly north should send them migrating again.

“Now we’ll wait to see how they come back,” Johnson said.

Showing just how amazing the birds are, in 2013 a burrowing owl captured near Baker, Ore., came back to the exact same burrow after wintering south of San Francisco.

As a follow-up to the satellite transmissions, Johnson said GLOW will be examining the habitat conditions where the owls are wintering.

The study of owls has been a personal mission for the 58-year-old Johnson since a screech owl landed on his tent when he was an 11-year-old boy in Minnesota.

“It called for 20 minutes. Ever since then I’ve seen owls as close friends,” he said. “So I say I didn’t pick owls, they picked me.”

Since 1976 he’s been working on owl projects full time.

“I’m going to work on conservation of owls till my last breath,” he said. “Because the more I’ve studied and observed them, the more impassioned I’ve become.”

Roberto found the big group of the butterflies in the highlands of Sierra Gorda. There were so many of them that the branches of the cedar were bowing under the weight.

He noticed that they had returned to the same place that he remembered them visiting when he was a child.

“When I was young, the oak branches bent under the weight of the butterflies. Now there is a cedar in the same spot, and the same oaks with some butterflies. Unfortunately they are nothing compared with their former numbers, but it’s amazing how they ‘remember’ their wintering grounds in central Mexico, and the good spots to have a nap and a rest during the long journey.”

Traditionally Monarch Butterflies arrive in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated on the first two days of November, and according to Mexican folklore they are said to represent the souls of the dead.

The movements of a young female Hammerhead Shark have been tracked for the first time, revealing vulnerable gaps in the present protection plans.

Hammerhead Sharks are listed as threatened with the IUCN and numbers have declined by more than 90 percent in some parts of the world, particularly Scalloped Hammerhead sharks, found in the Gulf of California, Mexico.

These are susceptible to being caught by fishing nets while moving into the open sea, but little information exists on their exact movements, especially those of juvenile sharks as they go through the critical period of adolescence.

Current protection plans prohibit commercial fishing from large vessels within 50 nautical miles of the coast. However, findings from this study reveals the young sharks venture into the open seas to fish, meaning they are still vulnerable to being caught in fishing nets.

Researchers from the Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas, Mexico and the University of California, Davis, USA tagged three live juvenile hammerhead sharks in Mexico’s Gulf of California so they could be tracked through adolescence.

The results of one of these tags, which was downloaded after fishermen caught one of the sharks, revealed the female shark travelled 3,350 km, and helped pinpoint potential key sites needing protection.

She was found to swim within a school of fellow hammerheads at an offshore island during the day, but migrated away at night, diving to greater depths to feed on fish and squid, sometimes as deep as 270m.

This behaviour, the scientists believe, maximises her foraging opportunities and continuing growth, and partially explains the early migration of this juvenile female to off-shore waters for richer food. Scalloped Hammerhead Shark pups have high metabolic rates and as they grow older require higher ration levels to fulfil their energetic needs.

Study author Mauricio Hoyos from Pelagios Kakunjá (a Mexican NGO) said “The key to protecting this species is detecting their nursery grounds and protecting them in their more vulnerable stages. This is the first time ever that we have an idea of the behaviour of this life stage in this zone and this information will be important to design management plans to protect this species in Mexico.”

The research suggests that juvenile female hammerheads are trading off the risks of greater exposure to predators in the open sea, with better food sourcing opportunities.

However their ventures to the open sea means current management measures for sharks set by the Mexican government may not be sufficient for the conservation of this species.

This new information highlights hammerhead sharks may still be in danger, due to their use of both coastal and offshore waters during early life stages. The researchers say that coastal nursery grounds and offshore refuge areas for scalloped hammerheads are therefore critical habitats where protected marine reserves should be sited.

Study author James Ketchum from Pelagios Kakunjá (a Mexican NGO) said: “For the first time, we’ve seen the shift from a coastal-inhabiting juvenile to a migratory adolescent that remains mostly offshore in order to maximise growth and reproductive potential. Because of their dependence on both coastal and offshore waters during their early life-stages, we think that they may be more susceptible to fisheries than previously thought, and current protective measures in Mexico may unfortunately be insufficient.”

On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of workers and youth converged on Mexico City’s Zocalo Square. Many of the parents of the normalistas from the Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School took part in the rally, which was held just under two months after the disappearance of their children in late September. Participants denounced the government of President Enrique Peña Nieto, which is complicit in the disappearance of the students and is widely hated for its right-wing, pro-business policies.

The military has responded with ominous warnings about the danger of social “instability.” At a military graduation ceremony Thursday, General Salvador Cienfuegos, Peña Nieto’s defense secretary, alluded to the demonstrations by citing “insecurity” as one of “the great challenges we confront.”

The Army, Cienfuegos declared, “acts with strength and determination when it becomes necessary.” He added, “In times of disunity is when the country has suffered its major fractures.” This is the standard language of a military clique prepared to intervene with force in political life, and the Mexican ruling class has a long history of ordering military attacks on demonstrations.

At the same ceremony, Peña Nieto proclaimed, “Under no circumstances can the loyalty and noble service that the armed forces have lent to the nation be put in doubt.”

Thursday’s demonstrations took place in 30 cities across the country and were the largest since the normalistas disappeared after calling for improvements to rural education. José Luis Abarca, the mayor of Iguala, located in the state of Guerrero, responded to their initial protests by ordering local police to violently attack the student teachers, killing six and abducting 43.

The 43 were subsequently turned over to the notorious and state-connected drug gang, the Guerreros Unidos. Reports have emerged that the normalistas were tortured and then burned alive by members of the cartel.

Demonstrators called for the resignation of Peña Nieto, whose effigy was burned as thousands of onlookers cheered. The main speakers were the parents of the disappeared normalistas, who had traveled over 80 miles from Guerrero to make a national appeal.

“Today, the 20th of November, we celebrate the 104th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution,” said Felipe de la Cruz, a father of one of the disappeared. “If we are halted here, it is because the governing class has mutilated our Constitution for their benefit and to justify their acts.”

The government had earlier announced the cancellation of its own Revolution Day parade on account of the expected demonstrations—an act that is itself a significant indication of growing political crisis.

…

As the Mexican ruling class prepares to suppress social opposition domestically, it can count on the full support of its counterparts in the United States.

In a February 2014 press conference with President Peña Nieto held in Toluca, Mexico, US President Barack Obama touted “our shared commitment to democratic values and human rights” and praised the “enormous sacrifices” made by the Mexican security forces in the fight against drug cartels.

While the US has remained largely silent about the normalistas, US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki addressed the Ayotzinapa massacre earlier this month, urging “all parties to remain calm throughout the process,” as though peaceful demonstrators and those responsible for the murder of the normalistas stood on equal ground. Noting that the US government is “concerned about the tensions on the ground,” Psaki added the US was “engaged, also, closely with officials there.” This, no doubt, includes top officials in the Mexican military.

Meanwhile, the United States military and intelligence agencies continue to deepen their already close ties with their Mexican counterparts, under the cover of the “war on drugs.” A report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal noted that officials from the Department of Justice were donning the uniforms of the Mexican Marines and taking part in armed raids in Mexican territory. The US has supplied the Mexican state with some $2 billion in arms aid under the pretext of fighting crime.

Representatives of international finance capital have also responded with concern over the demonstrations. Alfredo Coutiño, the Latin American director of the investment-rating firm Moody’s, said on Friday that, “the political and social events of the last months have begun to generate questions with respect to the promising economic perspectives which were generated with the beginning of the new administration. The markets, above all the international markets, are beginning to be disillusioned…”

The “promising economic perspectives” cited by Moody’s refers above all to the historic privatization of the Mexican oil industry, a move that international finance capital—and the American ruling class in particular—views as a prime money-making opportunity.

The Mexican army and the presidency stand accused of complicity in horrific killings, reports Emile Schepers: here.

Mexican President Peña Nieto announces police-state plan as more bodies are discovered: here.

Protesters marked the second anniversary of President Enrique Pena Nieto’s administration on Monday by marching in cities across Mexico to demand justice for 43 students who disappeared at the hands of police: here.

Tens of thousands of workers and youth marched in 60 Mexican cities on December 1 to protest the disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa student teachers in the city of Iguala, in the southern State of Guerrero. The marchers are demanding that the 43 be returned alive and the resignation of Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto. The protest took place alongside student strikes in dozens of universities. December 1 also marked the second anniversary of Peña Nieto’s presidency: here.

MEXICAN AUTHORITIES: 43 MISSING STUDENTS INCINERATED AT GARBAGE DUMP “Mexican authorities on Sunday said that mounting evidence and initial DNA tests confirmed that 43 trainee teachers who were abducted by corrupt police 10 weeks ago were incinerated at a garbage dump by drug gang members. Attorney General Jesus Murillo told reporters that one of the students had been identified by experts in Austria from a bone fragment in a bag of ash and bits of burned tire found in a river where drug gang members said they tossed the students remains.” [Reuters]

Mexican student activist Varinia Emiliana, 19, has been taking part in demonstrations in Mexico’s Federal District (DF), ever since news of the disappearance of 43 student teachers in Iguala, Guerrero, sparked national protests. She is one of many thousands who, tired of widespread poverty, violence and corruption plaguing the country, are demanding that the federal government find the disappeared students and that President Enrique Pena Nieto resign: here.

Mexico’s government announced the start of bidding for oil exploration rights in 14 areas of the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday. Opening the bidding to domestic and international companies marked the end of a seven-decade state oil monopoly. Mexico nationalised its oil industry in 1938. Prior to this year’s right-wing policy changes, state company Petroleos Mexicanos was the only body allowed to carry out oil exploration and production: here.

Mexican police have unearthed ten decapitated bodies and eleven heads in unmarked graves Tuesday near the city of Chilapa de Alvarez, 31 miles east of Guerrero state’s capital, Chilpancingo. The bodies were found spread throughout six clandestine graves with their hands tied and showing signs of torture. The heads of the victims were discovered in another grave inside four plastic bags: here.

It is just over four months since police in the town of Iguala in the impoverished southern state of Guerrero opened fire on a group of rural teaching students, killing 6 and wounding 17. Another 43 disappeared after falling into the hands of the authorities. Now, the Mexican government of President Enrique Peña Nieto has moved to declare the crime solved and the case closed for the most transparent political motives: here.

“Tens of thousands of people marched down Mexico City’s main boulevard Wednesday evening to protest the disappearance of 43 young people in the south of the country and demand the government find them.

The largely young crowd carried Mexican flags with black mourning bands replacing the red and green stripes, counting off the numbers from one to 43. Protesters also chanted: “They took them away alive, and alive we want them back.”

In Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state, groups of protesters angry about the government’s inability to find the missing used hijacked trucks to block all three highways leading into the city for several hours.”

The escalating human rights abuses in Central America are caused by the insatiable appetite for drugs in the US, writes JEREMY CORBYN

THREE weeks ago, 43 students boarded a coach from their college in Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero in Mexico. They never completed their journey.

What exactly happened remains unclear but it appears that the first six were shot by police after the bus was stopped.

The outrageous disappearance of these students comes on top of the thousands who have disappeared in Mexico in the past 10 years as part of the “war on drugs.”

From the Mexican government’s point of view the situation has gone from bad to worse.

Police instructed to search for the missing students have discovered more and more unmarked graves.

Every new horror is then DNA tested, but so far none of the missing 43 have been found.

These newly discovered graves are very often the bodies, often burnt, of desperate Central American migrants trying to cross Mexico to get to the United States in order to survive economically, and send money back to their families in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The 43 students who lost their lives were on their way to a demonstration and apparently the mayor of Iguala ordered police to prevent them from travelling because he thought they were going to heckle his wife who was due to speak at an event.

He and his wife were subsequently arrested in Mexico City, but huge questions remain over the link between the police and Mexico’s notorious narco gangs.

Suspicions have been raised about the inability of Mexican federal authorities to either protect people or to unmask the culprits of this atrocious attack.

There are 1,000 people per week arriving back in Guatemala, so that’s 1,000 families losing any remittance income, and 1,000 more people competing for work.

Fundamentally, Central American human rights abuses result from the insatiable appetite for Class A drugs in the US. The very well-funded and organised narco gangs are able to corrupt police forces and the whole political system.

“The SoNG MPA supports an astonishing diversity of dolphins, porpoises and whales including species in need of immediate protection,” said Rubaiyat Mansur of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project.

“Declaration of Bangladesh’s first Marine Protected Area shows our country’s commitment to saving its natural resources and wonders.”

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bangladesh Cetacean Diversity Project has worked along with the Government of Bangladesh since 2004 to ensure the long-term protection of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) in waters of Bangladesh through collaborative efforts with local communities.

“Marine protected areas that conserve cetaceans and other marine life are extremely important steps in saving vital marine ecosystems that support hundreds of thousands of people,” said Dr. Howard Rosenbaum, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Ocean Giants Program. “Safeguarding these species and natural resources will become even more important in the years to come, particularly due to the challenges of climate change.”